Mark Bell's Power Project - Male Loneliness Is On The Rise - Reacting To MoistCr1TiKaL with Chris Williamson

Starting point is 00:00:00 We found that like men have a tough time gaining new male friendships as they get older. And I think this is probably a pretty interesting video to go in on it. So let's watch it. Why do you think there's a rise, a recent rise against porn and masturbation? Oh, that's super easy. The reason so many people are against porn right now is just because like the thing to do is preach life advice. Like that is the main thing that people are looking for. People are more

Starting point is 00:00:25 terminally online now than ever more isolated than ever they don't have real friends they don't people look up to so they go to like content creators online so they're getting their life advice from there and obviously porn consumption is a you know it can lead to an addiction much like a lot of things so come out against porn it's decent advice but more so you should be teaching people how to be more responsible as opposed to just don't touch this or you're going to be a lonely loser forever. And you're going to be impotent. I saw you ask Derek about nofap and you mentioned the bro science aspect of it. So what are your thoughts on like nofap and young men? What do you think about that whole genre of stuff? I recently had a conversation with a guy called Dr. David Lay,

Starting point is 00:01:05 who is, he wrote a book called Porn for Dicks, an ethical use for how to fap online, basically. He is very anti-porn panic. He's very pro-masturbation. He says that there's no such thing as sex addiction or porn addiction and that no fap is total bollocks. So I've got a bit of availability bias here because I've recently spoken to this guy that kind of turned my worldview upside down. I would say on average, it is a good idea to limit your exposure to porn if you can. I think that there is like an escalating desire system

Starting point is 00:01:37 that goes on where you constantly want ever more extreme types of porn to keep yourself stimulated. Also also if you're a single guy you're going to not want to go out and find sex if you can satisfy yourself on your own and if you're in a relationship you're not going to want to satisfy your partner as much if you can satisfy yourself on your own this isn't for me to say like don't touch your penis you better not touch your fucking penis touch your penis touch your penis don't touch your penis right now but or right now this is the sus stuff that you were warning me about before we got started this is why people on the internet believe that you and seema

Starting point is 00:02:17 have a closet that you need to come out of because you are instructing people who are listening to a video that you are on to touch their penis. I leave it up to them to do what they want, Chris. That sounded like a command to me. Don't touch yourself, Chris. While Mark is holding... My phallic symbol.

Starting point is 00:02:39 This luminous... It's hard to not touch your penis. Try to make it through just a couple hours. Seriously. So, limit porn use, use i think is a good idea right like i just generally it would be good for you to be motivated to go and find physical connection between you and either a new partner or you and your existing partner like that that doesn't seem like a crazy stat to go after when it comes to the levitation and the like women can smell the pheromones and all that sort of stuff i think that people are getting out over their skis one other thing that charlie talks about which is super smart i love charlie by the way most critical is fucking phenomenal he says that people can feel super disgusted if they do break their no

Starting point is 00:03:18 fap streak and that is something that's really dangerous how much do you benefit from the reduction in porn use and fapping compared with how disgusted and ashamed do you feel about yourself if and when you do break it? And if that does happen, you go, well, oh God, I've actually created a situation in which like you're asking yourself to do one of the two things that you were biologically designed to do, survival and reproduction. Okay. Don't do the thing that's associated with reproduction. When people mean no fap, what they should really mean for the most part is no porn yeah we talked about it quite a bit and that's primarily what what i'm talking about there because there's

Starting point is 00:03:54 nothing wrong with masturbation but i fell into the trappings when i was younger of because i liked porn so much it was stopping me from going out and actually socializing and trying to talk to actual women. And I just didn't have the energy for that at certain points because I was addicted to fucking porn, but there's nothing wrong with masturbation. It's just the overconsumption of that stimulus for a young man. Sometimes it's hard to get away from. So it's something that it's tough, but it's just something you need to be careful with. You definitely can be way too young for porn. No, 100%. A lesson should be more about how to not get addicted to things and practice moderation because that's a lesson that extends well beyond porn, but it's just people being lonely. Charlie, come on the podcast, man. They don't have anyone. There's so many. What was that study? I

Starting point is 00:04:38 brought it up on stream last month. There's a study done that uh in 2022 the amount of people without a single friend at least in the survey this was a big study the amount of people without a single friend has more than like doubled over the last 10 years or something lonely people needing any form of camaraderie do you think that's people's fault what do you mean loneliness it's like your own fault right like aren't you choosing that oh that's an interesting can't you go get it go get what a friend community can't you fucking be social or i mean i guess there's like you could maybe have a mental illness of some kind but i'm not 10 of the world's autistic like ish or like has some sort of aspergic tendencies that's pretty fucking hard but zero friends from like a large majority of people people can be shy they can be introverted

Starting point is 00:05:30 you know social anxiety all this stuff i i don't know i i would always err on the side of you can do this it is something that's within your power right you can go out there and you can find friends there are people that want to hear from you yeah to me it's like saying zero exercise you know like you you should be able to me it's like saying zero exercise. You know, like you should be able to have some agency over some of that. So the difference is exercise you can do on your own. You need a friend to be able to have a friend, right? So it's not just you.

Starting point is 00:05:55 So there is a little bit of a difficulty there. But dude, I mean, you know, most people don't want to be lonely, and yet they are. So it might not be your fault, but it is your responsibility. You know, the Jocko thing, like perhaps that's where this sits. But fuck, dude, I mean, I spent a decade of being someone that wanted more friends and struggled to find it. So I empathize massively with the people that aren't doing it.

Starting point is 00:06:17 That being said, if you're watching content that's even remotely like this, there are tons and tons of people out there that want to have interesting conversations with you. Like there is a fucking litany of people that want to be friends with you and you have interests that probably include the gym and youtube stuff and maybe comedy and maybe fucking anime or whatever it is that you're into there is a group of people that are doing meetups in the city that you live in about that sort of shit and you'll rock up and you'll find a ton of people that already are interested in the stuff you're interested in and there you go you can bond or you just go to the gym you ask someone to spot them and before you know it you guys are best friends like that's

Starting point is 00:06:53 the way it works and the saddest part is instead of trying to help people shame them i think the opposite i i think most people have recognized that there are so many lonely people out there but they've learned that those lonely people will pay for the experience of being part of a group or like feeling like a friend. So they exploit it. No different than selling like a course on how to get laid. No different than selling a course on like how to be more social, stuff like that. They're very easily exploitable because they're just very desperate. Do you see, for example, again, the red pill community has a lot of benefit, but do you see aspects of the red pill community somewhat being like that? Like a community that, for example, it's adversarial. So it puts women are like this.

Starting point is 00:07:38 Men, this is the way you want to progress. So like you want to become a high value man. There are aspects of working on yourself physically and mentally. There are aspects of making yourself this high value or one percentile man. But there's also aspects of, well, you do want to be with multiple women. Women are generally this way. And it puts women in a certain type of box where now you're part of this community. That's rah, rah.

Starting point is 00:08:03 I believe in this. There are guys who are self courses on how to become that type of box where now you're part of this community that's rah-rah, I believe in this. There are guys who sell courses on how to become that type of man, but it does put you in this sort of online community of guys who believe that same sort of thing, right? So I wonder if it's somewhat of a similar thing where these men are just looking for a community of like-minded men who believe in the same thing. Not that a community is is a bad thing but it's the type of community that you put yourself into there was a study done where they brought people into a room and as they walked in they tossed a coin in front of them and the coin landed heads or tails if you were heads you were red team if you were tails you were blue team it was split evenly after people had come in They'd go over and they'd speak to the blue team and they'd go,

Starting point is 00:08:46 so what do you think about the red team? And they'd go, dude, they look a bit stupid, don't they? I mean, they're definitely not as smart as us. And like, oh, you can tell. They're just not. Everybody knew that this choice was completely arbitrary upon the moment that you walked in. And yet, humans' desire to become tribal just appears just fucking manifests

Starting point is 00:09:07 out of thinner as soon as you create a them and an us people will bind together over the mutual hatred of the out group and the mutual love of the in group yes if you have a movement people will feel like they're a part of it right especially if it's men we were talking on the podcast that people should go and check out that men will bind together over a shared purpose. That's what we're designed to do. That's why relationships that you have, friendships that you have that transcend just friends, but are also part of a business

Starting point is 00:09:34 or perhaps a larger movement are going to be deeper even than brothers sometimes, you know, than family members, because there is something about shared suffering and a shared purpose. And that's what people get. So yeah it does it create support for people absolutely i'm sure that some serial killers get together and have a great time i'm sure that like you know there's a number of different ways that people could bunch together on the internet for whatever reason yeah the point is can you find people that make your life better? And dude, you know, would I rather men be lost and alone or have a community?

Starting point is 00:10:10 Like, absolutely. Like, find your guys' stuff. But as soon as you bind together over like an ideology or a particular movement, you start to see like runaway extremes of that occur. Derek from More Plates more plates more dates talks about this with regards to his reddit right this is a perfect example derek created a reddit for more plates more dates that has now moved under its own steam and basically become the new like bodybuilding.com misc forum and it's got i think maybe a hundred thousand people maybe even more

Starting point is 00:10:41 on it now and he is no longer in control of what's going on. It's no longer really even about him. In fact, maybe half of the posts are kind of taking the piss out of him. So when you group people together, that tribal dynamic can cause whatever the original noble purpose we're going to teach men about how to become better dating communicators or whatever. And then the loudest, most extreme voices sometimes can take over. And you've got to be careful. Like if you're going to be the leader of a movement,

Starting point is 00:11:10 you need to make sure that it can't get hijacked by people because you can have the most noble of intentions when it first starts. And if you're not careful with how you discipline the movement and how you control it going forward, it can end up in some pretty nasty places. Pat Brodger, family, how's it going? Hope you're enjoying the episode.

Starting point is 00:11:26 And this episode is brought to you by Merrick Health, the premium telehealth clinic from Derek from More Plates, More Dates. Now, if you've been wanting to get your blood work done or if you wanted to get your blood work analyzed by a physician, Merrick has your back on that. And Andrew, can you tell them how to do that? Yeah, absolutely.

Starting point is 00:11:42 So if you guys know exactly what labs you want to get, you guys can load them all up into your cart and at out InterPromoCode PowerProject 10 to save 10% off all labs. But if you're like me and you're not sure exactly where to start, you guys can get the PowerProject panel. You guys can head over to MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject. You guys will see a whole panel of like over 26 different labs, everything from head to toe that you're going to need to know what's going on under the hood. And again, to get in on that, head over to MerrickHealth.com slash PowerProject and that checkout enter promo code PowerProject to save $101 off of that entire panel. Links to them and all the information down in the description, as well as the podcast show notes. There's just a lot of sad, lonely people that get taken advantage of. And yeah,

Starting point is 00:12:24 the reason why that's growing is just because everyone's online now so you don't make real connections you never learn social skills so you never make real friends in the real world you say you just stay trapped in the cyberspace that was me as a teenager matrix yeah the matrix is real and i absolutely feel like the matrix is 100 just getting locked online and just being part of like only online groups without real world connections. That's the fucking matrix. Are people making connections online? Like are they making friends online?

Starting point is 00:12:54 I don't know, man. connection with people that you only know online versus depth of connection the people that you know in the real world and how many online friends is worth one real friends that you can meet face to face and stuff like that but i imagine that it would be a pretty big difference like i would guess maybe you need 20 online friends to make up for one friend in the real world but like looking at youtube instagram tiktok those aren't't like interactive in a friendship kind of way? No, they're not the same as WhatsApp, right? Or Facebook Messenger or something. You're not actually communicating with a person. It's a performative like display of friendship.

Starting point is 00:13:36 I don't know, dude. I mean, you know, how chronically online the world is, is not good. Yes. And I have a theory around why we haven't seen this uprise of sexless men pushing over granny and causing havoc in the world something called young male syndrome when you have a ton of men who aren't in a relationship or with children they uh their testosterone is kept high because it doesn't dip down in relationship and then further when it has kids that's something that happens so risk-taking behavior continues to be high. And you have young male syndrome,

Starting point is 00:14:06 which is this large swaths of unmarried childless men that just cause ructions and havoc, right? So given that we've seen unprecedented rates of sexlessness amongst young men, 30% of men between 18 and 30 haven't had sex in the last year. Why aren't there more incel killings? Why aren't there more negative outcomes

Starting point is 00:14:26 from this that we're seeing and i think the reason is that men are being sedated out of that through porn and video games their status seeking behavior is being satisfied through video games and their reproductive seeking behavior is being satisfied through porn now this is a titrated dose it's a tiny tiny tiny little fraction of what it could be if you are actually playing a sport together, right? Or if you are actually hunting a mammoth together, or if you are actually having sex with a partner. But it's enough. It's enough to make sure that they don't actually go out and destroy the world. Now, do you want an army of risk-taking, highly disagreeable men roaming the streets because they've got nothing else to do?

Starting point is 00:15:05 No. But do you want this grey sludge of useless men? You also don't want that. I mean, it's better by only the tiniest fucking hair of a margin, it's better than having guys that are burning down buildings, but only by a tiny, tiny little bit. Because when you need them to step up, what is it, 50% of men in the US now are so unfit

Starting point is 00:15:27 that they wouldn't be able to pass the basic physical training course for the US Army. 50% are being pre-selected out because of how unfit they are. It may even be more than that. Not good. Not good. Over fist for the feeling like you have friends. You want tough love advice?

Starting point is 00:15:42 Go outside ASAP. Anywhere. Gym. Gym would be a great place to start. Be around people. Like just start there. Just put yourself around other people. I'm just going to insert here. This is where if you're a guy, jujitsu actually would be a really good idea because it's a martial art. It is a community-based martial art where you're forced to do it with other people. You're forced to be in uncomfortable situations with another man and there are some women that do it too. And by doing that, just by being there, you will make friends. I've made tons of friends doing jiu-jitsu over the past seven years.

Starting point is 00:16:16 And I go to a bunch of different schools in the area and different schools out of the state. I'm able to make friendships in other places too just because of the shared bond of doing this martial art together that was why i really enjoyed crossfit because it changed from being this very neurotic staring in the mirror like steeping in my own neurosis bodybuilding style training to a community-based thing there was hot chicks in like shorts and they were like they were interacting with you and you didn't even need they'd say do you want to like share a bar together or whatever and you would and they do and you wouldn't even need to talk to like it's just part and parcel it was so community-based it was so society-based and i really really like that so you know find the thing that you're

Starting point is 00:16:56 interested in and do a class in it i've just sent a meme there which i think explains exactly what charlie is talking about here which is this famous meme that Elon Musk tweeted I broke the show by trying to put an image on the screen so I sent an image which Elon Musk tweeted a little while ago and for the people that are just listening on the left shows this sort of lost NPC am I being tested again is this one of your hardest battles and then jesus is on the other side looking at an absolute chad he says you literally just need to put your phone down and go outside yeah yeah that's literally yeah that that makes a lot of sense or get up

Starting point is 00:17:45 just stop watching the video no we can't do that we need the watch time oh once this video finishes go outside put your phone down and go outside

Starting point is 00:17:53 don't do it yet but seriously go find a CrossFit box because it's it's interactive by nature go find a Jiu Jitsu gym it's interactive by nature easiest things you could do

Starting point is 00:18:02 I'm going to go in my room in the dark on my phone and look up stuff about loneliness furiously fat you don't even have to do anything crazy at the gym you can go there and fucking run on the elliptical walk on the treadmill doesn't matter put yourself around people as a start i think my record's like seven in a day by the way it's just dust after seven times. You'd think. Dense air. Chalk.

Starting point is 00:18:31 I have a friend who I was in Dubai with a couple of years ago, and we were in the pool, and we spent a good bit of time catching up. I've known him quite well. We're in the pool after we spent a hard day at work, floating around talking to each other, and he just turned and he went, dude, how much do you cum? What do you mean? Like, volume. He's like yeah yeah like the amount of semen that you produce how much do you come how do you measure this like i don't know

Starting point is 00:18:52 like what like in terms of percentile like if or he's like well like okay so like let's say that it's naught to 100th percentile how much i was like well i the only other men that i have avoided trying to make a habit of seeing come are men on porn videos and if i get to the stage of a porn video where a man is coming i've made a mistake so i and i don't think that that's a representative sample of the amount of semen he's like dude just make it i was like a 50th percentile i think i'm like slap bang in the middle of the normal amount of normal semen that a man produces. And like quick as a flash,

Starting point is 00:19:28 he just went 95th percentile. I was like, what gives you that impression? He's like, well, every time that I'm with a girl and I finish, she looks down and goes, that's a lot of cunt. And I said, well, what, how, what's that like? And he said, frankly, it's an inconvenience. Frankly, it gets in the way.

Starting point is 00:19:57 On my own and also with a partner. Made a huge mess. There's a serial killer I learned about from oh yeah that's right from this uh this podcast his name's dan cummins he's also a comedian hilarious guy joaquin kroll who got away with just rampant murdering of women over decades because he would rape murder cum on them and because of the sheer volume of cum on the victim's body, the police always thought it was done by a band of raving rapists. They thought it was – No single man could produce this much semen.

Starting point is 00:20:34 And that's how he got away for decades. Hiding in plain sight. Yes. Oh. Shut up. It's just wild. It can get you away with a lot of shit. All right. let's keep going

Starting point is 00:20:45 i hope this doesn't make it but i before i got with my wife i remember i was with a chick and then she looked down and she was just like when you're ready you're gonna get someone hella pregnant i was like i hope that's a good thing well aren't mexican men or mexican women are the the joke is that they're super fertile so you would assume that there's probably something with you guys too probably probably have high volume yeah it is mentality that's going to keep you locked online you know what here let's let's say you're right you annoy some people there's seven billion fucking people on this planet you think you're going to annoy every single one of them i promise you you won't every single person on this planet will not is not only capable of finding friends

Starting point is 00:21:29 but also finding a partner it's not very red pill charlie chat gave a good example the only person that legitimately universally annoys everyone is james corden and i don't think you're james corden fucking hate he absolutely hates james corden I'm so here for it. Does anybody like him? How do you feel about him being from the UK? He's a fat prick. James Corden is the only person that no one likes. Like all seven billion, like no one likes.

Starting point is 00:22:01 A real one-two punch by me and Charlie here on James Corden. Oh, and another good point. Even James Corden does have a wife keep that in mind if james corden can get a wife anyone can everyone's capable of finding friends everyone's capable of finding love you don't need to pay for the advice it's very simple you need to put yourself in a position to be around human beings you're never going to get anywhere locked in like discord servers twitter spaces or paying for guides online that is the truth of it but he's rich he wasn't always rich him and his wife him and his wife have been together for a long long time haven't they oh it was about why is cuckoldry on the rise that's where it all stemmed from that was the other thing

Starting point is 00:22:40 that that dude that was talking about uh porn and the lack of panic that was needed around it his two areas of expertise is he's the number one cuckold researcher in the world and he is anti-porn panic did he have is there any type of uh understanding can i have the luminous penis please yeah go for it um i don't know about this but i'm going mixed grip is there anything linking porn and potential voyeurism i'm just curious because it's like if you're consistently watching other people have sex and you're masturbating to other people i would just wonder the long-term effects of that because i mean every porn's been here for a long time in different ways but not the type of porn we have now.

Starting point is 00:23:26 So this is Huberman's point. This is what he said on my show, right? Okay. Which was, uh, it may not cross over. If you learn to get aroused watching other people,

Starting point is 00:23:33 it might not cross over into the real world. I need to do more research into James Day's stuff about why, just how, how true this is because his fucking insight is, uh, very porn positive and it's going to be incredibly unpopular when I release the episode because people love to shit on porn

Starting point is 00:23:52 that being said I don't know, I don't know any of the data I'd be telling you a lie if I did but cookholdry is fucking fascinating men should not be turned on by watching their partner sleep with another person or by encouraging it and i was saying to him because he's again he's spent a ton of time with these people and it's becoming more normalized now it was one of the top 10

Starting point is 00:24:17 increased searches worldwide it's in the in fact i think cook porn is in the top 10 of all porn searches in america no yep it's a porn hub every year they release their data yeah and it just came out for 2022 and if you're going to have a little bit of a look there's some cool shit in that but cook porn is on the rise um one of the reasons apparently that this is suggested as a um excused as a way that turns some men on is that the fear is a motivator kind of in the same way that doing something dangerous like autoerotic asphyxiation or um like pain and bondage and stuff like that this is more of a psychological fear obviously but you do see that men who are concerned about their partner's fidelity uh thrust harder and are more aggressive

Starting point is 00:25:06 during sex so it can actually be like a motivating force that's this is his justification for it i kept on saying to him i was like dude uh you know sneeko you know that guy yeah do you remember did you ever see the clip of him talking about what it was like to watch his girlfriend get fucked next to him yeah and it like basically traumatized him and he was watching this girl that he cares about get railed off some dude that was on the bed next to him he just had to like bail out even though he was able to be with another girl here's the fucking thing as well that people that do polyamory need to be concerned about especially if you're a guy it sounds great for you to be able to run through as many chicks as you want but there is a good amount of evidence

Starting point is 00:25:41 that suggests that your girlfriend sleeping with another man will hurt you more than a girlfriend's boyfriend sleeping with another woman like that's not to say that it's optimal for either party however you're going to lose more than she is in this scenario especially if it's just casual relationships because you are so hardwired to avoid being cucked male parental uncertainty is something that you are very very hardwired to avoid and if you allow that to happen thinking that it's going to be great because you can get your end away as much as you want you're going to pay a price psychologically if you're not ready for it so you need to be careful the demon doors that you decide to open.

Starting point is 00:26:26 Loneliness and people fucking your wife. It's the way that I wanted to finish this podcast. We've come a long way. If you don't want to end up a cuck, go outside. That's the takeaway. I'm really feeling like fucking in simpatico with Charlie here. We're just talking about the same shit. There's the attitude I'm talking about.

Starting point is 00:26:47 Thanks. I have to disagree with the flowery thinking, the idea that there's someone out there for everyone is just not reality. Most people in reality will end up alone. See, that's just wrong, like blatantly wrong. Let's use that line of thinking. Let's use cold, hard statistics. With that many people in the world, the people that end up alone are those that have done everything

Starting point is 00:27:06 they can to drive everyone else away. They end up alone because they're literally unlovable assholes. You end up alone because it is your fault. This is an interesting thing. Which I don't necessarily agree with. I was just saying it as a thought experiment. Yeah, exactly.

Starting point is 00:27:22 You know, you're talking about how like, for example, men, the woman that they're with is a it shows other men their status. And for women, the same thing with the men they're with. But I mean, Kevin Samuel's whole thing was lowering your standards potentially. He was primarily focused on women. But maybe also some guys need to pay attention to the standards that they might be having on the potential looks of the woman that they're with. Maybe you're also, I hate to use the number scale, but maybe you're also a four. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:27:55 Right? So it just makes you think a little bit. Do you need to adjust your standards for the person you want to be with? There's some interesting data that my friend William Costello, who's probably the number one incel sex researcher in the world at the moment, that he's come up with. And it suggests that that excuse, the reason that incels can't find a partner is because they are overshooting on what their standards are and they don't understand their mate value. His evidence suggests that incels actually lower their value more than other men would do so incels really do have a good idea of their mate value and they are prepared to compromise appropriately their issue

Starting point is 00:28:33 comes from like social and psychological factors usually in loneliness and so here's an ideology we're talking about specifically incels yes particularly but my point being that it's not that all lonely men are lonely because they have no idea how to appropriately approximate their own mate value and then they're just like pitching up and across and they have no idea where they're going that being said if you spend a good bit of time watching uh like fitstagram or a ton of red pill content you might believe that you are supposed to get you know some hot to trot 21 year old straight out of 11 nightclub in Miami. And it may be difficult for you to find that.

Starting point is 00:29:10 But you're like, you're coming out of fucking Nebraska or Wisconsin or some shit like that. It's like, look, this just isn't the world that you're living in. That's not to say that these girls aren't as beautiful, but they're not going to be the same. It's not going to be the same type of girl that you're looking for.

Starting point is 00:29:22 And you really want that. When you're a doomer and all you think about is, man, I haven't got laid yet oh man this fucking sucks i don't have friends either because no one accepts me because i'm annoying then you get in this self-fulfilling prophecy you drive everyone else away and you have ensured your own fate of being alone no one ends up alone that actually tries legitimately it doesn't happen go on twitter right now and type in the most unhinged belief imaginable you will find a community that agrees with you now take that to the real world like there is going to be someone no matter what that's going to agree with you and like you you can see it on twitter right now there is people that believe anything and there's tons of

Starting point is 00:30:01 them and those are people in the real world too. You're always going to find people that will just like you or be like you. It's just that, that is just the reality with this many people in the world. You're not special. You are not special. You're going to find like minded people. You are going to find a group. If you just don't lock yourself away and be this doomer attitude, fuck everyone, get away from me kind of guy and aside curious i'm curious because you did talk on the podcast about um how you do seek you you do seek friendships you do seek to socialize do you um try to find people that view things differently than you or do you like are you let's say yeah do you care about trying to find people that uh have different viewpoints because like yeah yes but only up to a certain limit like i'm not going to it's going to be difficult for me to sit down for dinner with

Starting point is 00:30:52 somebody that thinks that gender reassignment surgery for children is acceptable like it's just going to not be i mean i could sit down for dinner with them but it's not going to be an enjoyable dinner yeah so there is an upper bound of what i can do but i mean one of the we spoke about this on the podcast again one of the best things that you can do is unsolicited dms to people that you find interesting especially if you're traveling or if you know that they are or to create content that you are interested in yourself because it's going to create a gravity distortion field around you that attracts in other people that are also interested in that yeah so for me because of the size of the show a whole bunch of people want to talk about stuff that i'm already interested in so i've pre-selected this these inbound leads for potential friends or

Starting point is 00:31:36 guests that are coming through town or whatever like mark like you're coming through town you know what i do you know what zach does we went out for dinner on the night time and we had a phenomenal conversation over steak and prawns and a ton of other meat, right? And then some fruit. That was always going to happen because you pre-selected the people on the internet that are going to reach out to you.

Starting point is 00:31:56 So yeah, I tried to get people that have got different points of view, but you can have similar interests and a different approach. And that's just as interesting. If it was someone who is a fine art student or whatever, a fine art connoisseur, I would be fascinated to speak to them,

Starting point is 00:32:13 but I'm not going to have a massive amount to contribute. So I'd love to go and sit down with them for a couple of nights. But after a while, I'm like, oh, wow, like you're going to have to be very interesting to hold this together because we don't have a lot in common. But yeah, I would say that, you know,

Starting point is 00:32:24 some of my friends are in crypto, some are startups, some are writers, some are musicians, some are commentators, some are sports people, some are athletes, some are trainers. And I take a ton from all of them. This fucking perpetual victim shit, woe is me. No one likes me. So now I'm just going to stick online and hate everyone and just whine and complain and even paid extra money to whine and complain. That's why you're alone. Not because there's just no one out there for you. It's just you have ensured you'll never find them and they'll never find you.

Starting point is 00:32:53 Charlie, were you ever alone? Have you not watched any of my story time videos? I was literally that guy. That guy who just typed that, that was legitimately me. And you know what happened? just type that that was legitimately me and you know what happened in my sophomore year of college i recognized how all of the advice that i was getting from online all of the advice i had spent years forming my whole personality around was fucking worthless and it was the reason i was completely perpetually miserable and alone so in my sophomore year of college i put myself out there

Starting point is 00:33:19 i signed up to room with random roommates in college who happened to be very social and i learned from them i i was around them i learned how to be around people and then i made it friends in the real world went to parties made connections got laid all from just being around people not from anything i learned online real quick it's actually uh it's kind of funny i mean i wasn't petrally a loner but um i met these guys by going out to an expo and then he invited me to come train at this gym and it's just like you know it putting we talk about it all the time but just putting yourself in those situations where you're uncomfortable i'm not comfortable networking but it was at that type of networking type event where i met these dudes i met mark specifically so it's like putting yourself in

Starting point is 00:34:06 those situations that you don't necessarily feel comfortable being in. If you find that you're someone who doesn't have that many people, it's going to be extremely beneficial. Charlie hits the nail on the head earlier on in the video where he says anybody that tries almost always is going to succeed with friends. And you can guarantee that almost every person that is dealing with this sort of super black pill doomer cynicism mode of living without any friends is not doing the things that would make their life better they're not putting themselves out there as much as they could do or should do some people have got social anxiety some people have got reasons for not doing that but if you're a normal person who doesn't have enough friends and you're not doing the things that could make that situation better

Starting point is 00:34:48 that's on you the same thing goes for if you complain about not being sufficiently productive and you're not making progress in life but every single night you stay on your phone until three in the morning dude that's that's on nobody except for yourself you can say i have tried to go out to crossfit gyms and brazilian jiu-jitsu classes twice a week for the last six months and i still don't have any friend okay well maybe maybe we've got a problem here but if you're not doing any of that stuff and sitting at home railing against the world for leaving you and forgetting you whilst not making yourself in any way visible to potential friends like that's that's obviously your fault you know how difficult that was for me to just sign up for fucking random roommates

Starting point is 00:35:29 but i did it and it was the best goddamn decision i've ever made you know what's easy listening to shit like cliches bad advice online that's the easy part and then you know what it did ensured i was fucking alone. It's a little self-fulfilling prophecy, isn't it? Do you see or talk to them? I used to see and talk to them all the time, even after college,

Starting point is 00:35:52 but recently not so much since I don't go out anymore, like to bars and shit. We still see each other from time to time. I went to my roommate's wedding not too long ago. There does seem to be some type of like self-development rabbit hole, not like rabbit hole, but like loop and and and repetition like if you keep taking in that same amount of content you're not taking out any action on the things that you continue to read or listen to then it's not really going to make a difference for you because there seems to be some common

Starting point is 00:36:20 themes within a lot of this information in that space but if you're not acting on it you're going to be in the same place five years from now, 10 years from now. So it can become mental masturbation. Yeah. Well, you're just super reliant on learning the next thing and optimizing. And, uh, yeah, that's another rabbit hole that you can get down with regards to personal development where dude, it would be significantly better to have three close friends than to read an extra 20 books a year or 30 books a year right like and even when it comes to sleep and stuff for all that i'm a sleep evangelist like dude if you if you need to sacrifice an hour's sleep a night to actually have some friends and social connection that's a price that i think is worth paying but yeah

Starting point is 00:37:02 leaning into action being an action focused person is like it's hard it's very easy to sit at home comparatively for some people sit at home and think about what they could would should be doing once they finally decide to go out into the world and deploy all of this learning

Starting point is 00:37:17 compared to actually just fucking putting yourself out there a great way to not be lonely would be go to the gym that has some sort of community class that could be spinning that could be yoga could be spinning, that could be yoga, that could be meditation, that could be Tai Chi, that could be Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, it could be CrossFit. There are Toastmasters, talking events, comedy classes, improv classes, whatever it is that you're into, unless it's something super, super niche, there's probably going to be a class of some kind or a meetup that occurs not a million miles away from you. going to be a class of some kind or a meetup that occurs not a million miles away from you. And there you go. You've got a preselected group of people that like the shit that you like. There you go. That's your solution. Take us on out of here, Andrew.

Starting point is 00:37:59 Steven Pressfield's put your ass where your heart wants to be, right? Boom. That's all you need to do. Thank you everyone for checking out this conversation. If you guys want the edited down, like flashy version, head over to YouTube. But if you guys dig this on the iTunes, we appreciate that. For everything podcast related, head over to powerproject.live and follow the podcast at mbpowerproject on Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter.

Starting point is 00:38:14 My Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter is at IamAndrewZNseema. Where are you at? Discord's below. Check it out. I'm Seema Inying on Instagram and YouTube. And I'm Seema YinYang on TikTok and Twitter. Chris, where can people find you in your pod?

Starting point is 00:38:24 Chris Willex on Instagram and Twitter. And I'm Simeon Yin Yang on TikTok and Twitter. Chris, where can people find you in your pod? Chris Willex on Instagram and Twitter, Chris Williamson on YouTube, and Modern Wisdom on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Mark Smelly Bell, strength is never a weakness, weakness is never strength. Catch you guys later.

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